Bug Expansion
Okay, you know that I've recently brought a large chunk of my old Tyranid army back up to the new standard of my painting, in hopes of playing it in tournaments. More specifically, it was my old Genestealer army, and it looks pretty good now if I do say so myself :) Anyway, it's a 1500pt army, but most of the tournaments around here are at the 1850pt level, meaning I'll need to add some more bugs to my broods, or something. Which brings me to this point, what do I add that will enhance the army without drastically changing it, and how do I do that with my limited amount of time?

The old version of the army, if you'll remember, consists of 3 Lictors to tie up or distract the enemy from a flying Hive Tyrant and 49 Genestealers. Finally, a pair of Venomfexes (Carnifex with Venom Cannon) round out the force to deal with enemy vehicles. It's a fairly simple and straightforward list, without mutations or large numbers of species. It has little shooting and is deceptively slow. For all the limited speed of the main component (the Genestealers) it gets nasty pretty quick, between the hiding Lictors and the flight of the Hive Tyrant, not to mention that all the Genestealers can infiltrate. It is, however, fairly slow. Adding a bunch of shooty Warriors would change the look and feel of the army, as would adding faster bio-constructs such as Gargoyles. Raveners, of course, are right out. Remember kids, friends don't let friends buy Raveners. Not only do they totally not look like the rest of the army, they are just too expensive and too fragile to be worthwhile. Biovores, while not as bad as Raveners, still aren't my cup of mice. A third Venomfex would add more anti-vehicle power to the army, and would certainly fit the theme, but I think that opponents would view that as a Selection faux pas, much like a second Hive Tyrant. While I won't be a slave to Selection scores, I do want to pay attention to them and not shoot myself in the foot. Well then, on to the options I have considered...

It's a party and everyone is invited!
My first thought was just to add more Genestealers. It turns out that for the point cost I can get 22 more Genestealers! For those of you playing along at home, that's a total of 71, one less than the maximum number of Genestealers possible (max brood size 12.) Heh. I'm pretty sure the look of raw fear I see on people's faces when I tell them that I've got 49 Genestealers would pale in comparison to what 71 would bring out. Although it wouldn't help the survival of my forces, or kill the enemy a turn faster or take out vehicles any better, it would be fun to bring and it would mean that more of them will survive their run through Bolter fire to crash into the enemy. In addition, big squads are a LOT better in 4th edition, as everybody that is in base contact with the enemy, or within 2 inches of someone who is, gets Full attacks, including specials such as Rending. The more Genestealers in a brood, the faster they will shred something. Finally, it just does my heart good to see a Swarm of Tyranid models. Although it would be small by most Hive Fleet standards, it would be enough to qualify.

Now for the down side. Although it would fit well with my theme and I think it would do fairly well in games, this would not be my first choice. I have noticed this army sometimes having problems with vehicles, and I expect I'll be seeing more vehicles at 1850 than I do at 1500pts, so not improving my anti-vehicular capability would be foolish. Perhaps more importantly, however, I just don't have that many more Genestealer models at the moment. Although I expect I'll be getting more in the future, and I still have some that haven't been brought up to the new standard, I don't think I could get more and finish them in time for these tournaments. Perhaps I'll try it in the future, but I doubt it'll happen within the next couple of months.

I spit in your eye!
Of course, thinking about Genestealers not being fast made me think of Spitters. These gaunt derivatives are something that I once created to replace Genestealers in my old, old Tyranid army list (the iteration before the Genestealers.) The idea was to give a gaunt enough offensive upgrades to let it's combat power rival a Genestealer, but let it also be Leaping and get Fleet of Claw, so it was as fast as a Hormogaunt. The experiment was a limited success. Although they didn't have quite as much power as a Genestealer individually, they got more attacks due to Leaping and they were at least twice as fast, getting to combat on turn One or Two, rather than Three or Four. In this particular army, they would hit the lines about the same time as the Hive Tyrant, which should cause a pretty good crunch. This concept also gives a good swarmy feel, since it adds 21 models to the board. The brood might also get some good advantage out of their Bioplasma attacks, since they hit even skimmers on a 4+, and going at Initiative 10 is impressive! Finally, I already have all the models and they are already painted, I'd just need to glue a couple back on bases and do a bit of battle damage repair.

The Spitters, of course, have their own problems as well. The first problem is that they don't pack as much of a punch as Genestealers do. In 3rd edition, Leaping meant that everybody within 2" of an enemy got their full attacks and specials, which let them compete with Genestealers, since the Genestealers couldn't use their full attacks or Rending Claws except for those in base contact with an enemy. Now, of course, the 4th edition rules have changed that so the Genestealers get quite a bit better, while the Spitters will only get the advantage back if the new ruling allowing Leaping models within 4" of a friendly model in base contact with the enemy to fight. Unfortunately, I wouldn't have enough of these models to take advantage of the 4 inch zone. In addition to not packing much punch, Spitters also change the look and feel of the army, shifting the weight of the army and adding another species and a Mutant Hive Node. I consider this option to be a poor choice, but it would be probably the easiest to do, so I won't ignore it outright.

Mary Kate and Ashley?
I do have a second flying Hive Tyrant, kitted out much like the first, except that it has batwings instead of insect wings and it isn't painted up to the new standard. Adding a second Hive Tyrant would certainly give me extra punch on turn 2 when the Tyrant(s) get into close combat and would still leave me enough points to bring my Genestealer count up to 58, which is a pretty solid number. The new rules for outnumbering treat Monstrous Creatures as 10 models, which will really help them. In addition to their physical power, they also bring a fair amount of resilience to the force with a high Toughness and 4 Wounds. A second Hive Tyrant would also bring an addition BS4 Warp Blast to the party, a welcome addition. The extra nastiness of a second Tyrant hitting the lines and adding to the speed of the army would certainly be useful.

On the other hand, the second Tyrant smells a bit like power gaming to most people, and it does give me some pause. In addition, the same new rules that give advantages to large squads take away from Monstrous Creatures and Independent Characters because they make numerous foes MUCH more dangerous, which means that I don't feel this will be as good an option as it looks at first.

Give 'em both barrels and join the Psychic Friends Network?
A friend of mine suggested that, since Monstrous Creatures can now fire 2 weapons in the shooting phase, I should add another Venom Cannon to each Carnifex, giving each of them 4 S10 shots (glancing only, however) to knock out enemy vehicles. I like this idea, and it doesn't require much in the way of conversion work for the Venomfexes either, just an additional Venom Cannon in a spinal mount on the opposite side of the carapace. (They are "shoulder" mounted on my Venomfexes, to make them look just a bit more alien and give me space to mount Scything Talons to match the ones I use for legs.) Although doing this will remove the pair of Scything Talons that give them an extra attack, I think that the extra cannon is worth that tradeoff. In addition, if I add 3 Zoanthropes with Warp Blast, even at BS3, that gives me a lot more in the way of options for firepower. Those concentrated Warp Blasts have S10 shots that CAN get better than a glancing hit, and the lower power blasts still ignore powered armor, so they can be very useful. I would round these out with 6 Genestealers as well. This would give me some variety of models as well, and would only require putting one back on it's base and painting the three of them, so it's certainly an easy option.

On the other hand (How many hands does this guy have, you might ask... Just remember that I'm a Tyranid commander, so the answer varies, but it's always enough!) this option does add a new species to the list, which changes things a little bit. It also fills up my final Heavy Support slot, which is something that people often look for when evaluating the Selection or Composition of an army. In sheer killing power, this choice doesn't compete with either the additional Hive Tyrant or the massive Genestealer infestation idea, but it's not too bad.

Decisions, Decisions
Well, I've gone over four options, and they all have their own strengths and weaknesses. I wrote all this down both to crystallize my thoughts and to hopefully give you some ideas on how to evaluate new additions to your own armies as well. Looking back over the options, I think that the Zoanthropes and double-gunned Venomfexes wins out, with the Spitters coming in a distant second, mostly due to convenience. The second Tyrant comes very close in third, while the Genestealers, despite looking like a good option, take dead last due to my lack of models for them and time to finish the models, though I do think I will try it later when the models are available to me. (I'm already planning on getting the Battle For Macragge set, so I know I'll have some extras in the future, part of the reason why I don't want to buy more now.)

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